II. This will be further evident from those scriptures which declare God is 'long-suffering to us ward, not being willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;' and that he sent his Prophets to prevent their ruin, 'because he had compassion on them;' that he commands his prophets, on peril of contracting the guilt of their blood, to warn his people, that, without repentance and reformation, they must die, and to let them know, that as sure as he lives "he would not the death of him that dies, but rather would have him turn and live;" and that therefore they could have no reason to say his " ways were not equal," or that they suffered for their fathers' sins. For,

First. Doth it become the wisdom of God to use or to appoint those means for the effecting what he would have done, which he knows to be no means, because no ways sufficient to produce the assigned end; and to withhold, yea, to decree to withhold, that which alone could make them so? And yet if he used only his long-suffering to lead men to repentance,' sent only prophets and messengers to warn them to turn from the evil of their ways; (and this long-suffering and these warnings must be ineffectual to these ends, where that unfrustrable grace which he did not vouchsafe is wanting ;) he used only means which he knew never could produce these ends, and withheld that which could alone produce them.

Secondly. Doth it become the sincerity and wisdom of God to declare he did these things out of compassion to his people,' till they so far despised his messengers, and rejected their warnings and admonitions, that there was no further remedy' for them, 'no healing of them,' saith the Hebrew, when he himself beheld them in their Utopian massa perdita,* without the least compassion, never designing them any remedy, or, which is in event the same, not any that could be effectual, but even then decreeing to withhold from them that grace without which there could be no healing by any messenger or prophet sent unto them? Does it become

either his wisdom or sincerity to quarrel with his people for saying The fathers had eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth were set on edge;' or that they died for the sins of their forefathers,' or, for enquiring thus, ‘If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us,

In their imaginary lost mass.

and we pine away in them, can we then live?" when his decree had made it the sad doom, not of them only, but even of the greatest part of mankind, to die eternally for the sin of their forefather Adam, and the apple he had eaten so long ago, set all his children's teeth on edge, and made so many precious souls to pine away in that iniquity, so that they could not live? Or could he hope to manifest the equity of his ways by saying, "All souls are mine," if he was not only like the Ostrich to the greatest part of them, "hardening himself against his own offspring," made after his own image, as if they were not his," but even making the most of them, after the fall of Adam, under that previous act of preterition, which rendered their damnation unavoidable? Is he so concerned to justify the equity of his proceedings by declaring, that "the son shall not die a temporal death for the iniquity of his father," but "the soul that personally sinneth he shall die;" when this more obvious exception lay against the equity of his proceedings with the sons of men,—that most of the sons of Adam lay under death eternal, by his peremptory decree, for the sin of their forefather, committed long before they had a being, and so before they were in a capacity of any personal offence? Does it become his sincerity to seem so earnest in his calls to them to repent, and turn themselves from their transgressions, and to inquire with so much seeming concern, 'Why will you die?' And to strengthen his invitation with an oath and solemn declaration, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, therefore turn yourselves and live ye;"

b

-Halo Chaphatseti Be) הֲלוֹא חָפָצְתִּי בְּשׁוּבוֹ ,and an enquiry

shubo,)* 'Am I not much delighted in that, that the sinner turneth from his evil way and liveth?' when he himself hath past that act of preterition on them, which renders it impossible for them to repent, or turn from the evil of their ways, and therefore impossible that they should live?

To say that God is serious, sincere, and in good earnest, in these declarations and enquiries, although revera decrevit gratiam necessariam ad illa præstanda eis non indulgere, et eos ad perniciem præscripsit, He hath decreed not to vouchsafe them grace

d

a Job xxxix. 16.

b Ezek. xviii. 30, 31, 32.

c Ver. 23.

* The Edition of 1735 has Hale Kaphatiti Beshab; although I am delighted does not occur in that

form in the 23d verse; but it i is

(Hechaphing echphing,) from the same root. EÐ.

Mares. contr. Socin. To. 1. p. 669.

necessary to perform these things, and hath appointed them for destruction, only because the thing commanded, though it be impossible to be done by them, would be grateful to him if it were done, and therefore may be said to be willed by him, voluntate simplicis complacentia, 'by a will of complacency,'—is most apparently to put a force upon the text, to delude men with vain words, and to make the great and good God speak so to his people in the concerns of their salvation, as a wise, honest, and sincere man would be ashamed to speak to his neighbour.

And (First,) it puts a manifest force upon the text. For in what propriety of speech can he be said to be more desirous that lapsed sinners should return from the evil of their ways and live, than that they should continue in their sins and die, who seeing them under an absolute necessity of dying without grace necessary to avoid it, leaves them under that sad necessity? And who seeing them under an equal incapacity of living without the same grace, decrees that they shall never have it, and therefore in effect saith, "They shall die and not live?" Surely when that which they say would be grateful to God, is by him left under a known impossibility of being done, he cannot properly be said to will it at all, because voluntas non est impossibilium, 'a true will only respects things possible;' much less can he be said to will it, rather than that death, which by his own decree, that is, his will and rule of acting, he hath made impossible to be avoided.

Again. Doth he not delude men with vain words, who teacheth that a God of truth and sincerity, and of great goodness, doth with much seeming ardency and compassion, enquire of persons absolutely doomed to death by his own prescription, "Why will you die?" and saith unto them with such symptoms of a passionate concern, "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, Why will you die? Repent, and be converted from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin," when he himself had from eternity appointed them to ruin, and purposed to withhold from them that without which it was impossible they should repent or be converted? And that he calls upon them to "cast away from them all their trransgressions whereby they have transgressed, and make themselves a new heart, and a new spirit, for I have no pleasure in their death;" when he himself only propounds the way of life unto them upon impossible conditions?

grace

Did ever any honest man sincerely thus attempt to engage another to that, which he beforehand knew was impossible for him to do without that help he had determined to deny him? Or enquire, why he would do what he well knew he never could avoid? Did ever any wise physician, oculist, or chirurgeon say to the blind, the deaf, and lame, 'I am not willing you should still continue 'under these distempers, put away therefore your blindness, deafness, and lameness, and it shall be well with you;' when they well knew it was impossible for them to do it without their art, and that they were resolved it should afford them no assistance in so doing? If then the case be perfectly the same, in reference to all to whom God hath decreed not to afford sufficient grace to enable them to repent, and to turn to him, or to obtain a new heart and spirit," and more especially to them, quos ad perditionem præscripsit, 'whom he hath ordained to die eternally;' who can imagine a God of wisdom and sincerity, not to say goodness, should so deal with the generality of lapsed men, as no good, wise, honest, or true-hearted man, could have the face to deal with one like himself? Infinite are the demonstrations which might be produced against this tremendous decree, but I shall wave them all at present, intending in the section containing arguments against an absolute election, to confute both these decrees together.

66

CHAP. III.

Concerning predestination, or the absolute election of some particular persons to eternal life.

THIS, (1.) with respect to the end, is an absolute decree and purpose of bringing a certain number of persons to eternal life, without respect to their foreseen faith or perseverance.

(2.) As it respects the means, it is an eternal decree and purpose of giving to these men, and these alone, that effectual grace which shall infallibly and infrustrably produce in them faith, sanctification, and perseverance to the end.

And here note, that this election or predestination considereth all men in the same condition, alike miserable and damnable,

alike impotent and wanting effectual grace, and alike meet to be the objects of his eternal love and partakers of effectual grace. So that as in two apples of equal goodness, no reason can be given why I should chuse one, rather than the other; so neither can any reason be assigned why all or any of these persons are thus elected to salvation, rather than all or any that are not elected.In opposition to this doctrine I assert,

First. That the election mentioned in the holy scriptures, is not that of particular persons, but only of churches and nations. Secondly. That this election doth import rather their being chosen to the enjoyment of the means of grace, than to a certainty of being saved by those means; that it is only that which puts them in a capacity of having all the privileges and blessings which God hath promised to his church and people, rather than under any absolute assurance of their salvation, or of any such grace as shall infallibly, and without any possibility of frustration, procure their salvation.

a

διά

Thirdly. That the election to salvation mentioned in the holy Scriptures is only through faith joined with holiness, according to those words of St. Paul God hath elected you (Thessalonians) to salvation, ev ayaou, by the SANCTIFICATION of the Spirit and the belief of the truth.' That it is only a conditional election upon our perseverance in a life of holiness, and is to be made sure unto us by good works,' according to that exhortation of St. Peter, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, dia Tŵv naλwv épywv, BY GOOD WORKS,' as both the Fathers, the Syriac, the Vulgar, the Æthiopic, and many ancient copies read, and as the text requires, the words immediately following being these, For if you do these things, you shall never fall;' plainly declaring, that both the making of their calling and election sure, depended on their doing of those works of virtue, godliness, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness and charity,' mentioned verses 5, 6, 7, of that chapter.

Now that the whole society, or all the members of the church of God and Christ, are, in the sense of scripture, the chosen and elect of God; or that the election mentioned in the holy scriptures is